Bullet Train Review: A ride you can enjoy this weekend

Director: David Leitch

Cast: Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, and Sandra Bullock

A lot can happen during a train ride and director David Leitch proves that with his latest outing ‘Bullet Train’. From people being killed with the venom of a deadly snake and their eyes oozing out blood, terrorising ‘twins’ wreaking havoc, epic gun, sword, and water bottle fight to people trying to avenge their dead wives and a cute girl who doubles as the main psychopath, there’s a lot of action and drama happening in parallel until it all finally connects.

All this while, a ticketless assassin named Ladybug (Brad Pitt) just wants to snatch a briefcase with cash and gold from the train and exit. He is guided on the call by his ‘handler’ Maria Beetle (Sandra Bullock) who makes a much-needed appearance in the end. One of the main plot twists is that the Ladybug is filling in for a man named Carver (Ryan Reynolds) who fell sick at the last minute.

Of course, Ladybug ends up staying for the entire two-hour ride from Tokyo to Kyoto and keeps the audience wondering if he is as unlucky as he claims to be or actually very lucky. There’s a lot of madness that happens during the superfast train ride but the ‘twins’ – Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) – steal the show even though they fail their mission miserably. Their backstory is as touching as their bond, and their banter throughout the movie makes it all the more enjoyable. Most of the laughs in ‘Bullet Train’ can be credited to Lemon who has the most important role to play in the post-credits scene (don’t miss it). Lemon’s attachment to the children’s cartoon ‘Thomas the tank engine’ is another driving point of the story. Lemon’s brief bonding moment with Ladybug in the climax is also an interesting twist given that he shot him twice in the past.

Watching Pitt doing some of the best fight scenes in the current times is why you should watch the movie on the large screen. While he has his Zen mode on in the movie and delivers some cringe dialogues occasionally, they can be ignored along with some illogical and over-the-top scenes. His nerd look with glasses and a huge hat fail to make him less sexy and his short interaction with Channing Tatum where the latter asks him if he’s interested in him sexually will crack you up. Tatum’s cameo in the film is a bit longer than Reynolds’ who has a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance.

Joey King (Prince) wins with her performance and her ‘cute but killer’ act is believable. Yuichi (Andrew Koji) and The Elder’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) backstory is a bit of a drag but what disappoints, even more, is The White Death’s (Michael Shannon) appearance who fails to live up to the hype. Overall, if killer action and fight scenes, dead bodies, and comedy are what excite you, get on the ‘Bullet Train’ this weekend.